Open classroom – A European Commission Perspective

Nóra Milotay European Commission, DG Education and

Culture

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Why this European Year on creativity and innovation?

• A celebration of Europe’s creative and innovative past, present and future

• A call for a better understanding of innovation and how it can best be promoted for Europe’s social and economic development

• An economic and social necessity for addressing crucial challenges such as resource scarcity, demographic developments or climate change

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Why a European Year?

• To increase public awareness and interest• To facilitate and stimulate policy debate• To identify and disseminate good practices

at all levels, European, national, regional and local

• To build a better basis for evidence-based policy-making

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Main events of the Year

• Opening events, Prague 7 January• Major conferences on education, culture,

regional, business aspects…• Debates for stakeholders and think-tanks • Regional conferences and events on the

promotion of innovation • Ambassadors’ Manifesto • Closing event, Stockholm 17-18 December

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Shared implementation strategy

• Interservice working group at the Commission

• National coordinators• Strong cooperation with regions• Public and private partners and

stakeholders• Distributed planning and execution:

inclusive branding policy

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The key contribution of stakeholders

• Joining the discussion:– Ensuring that the EYCI addresses the right

problems and opportunities– Ensuring that the EYCI messages get through to

interested parties– Ensuring that the EYCI objectives become

endorsed in education and training policy in 2009 and beyond

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Creativity and Innovation definitions

● CreativityImaginative activity fashioned so as to produce outcomes that are both original and of value. NACCCE* (UK), 1999

*National Advisory Committee on Creative

and Cultural Education

● InnovationA new or significantly improved product (good or service), or process, a new marketing method, or a new organizational method, businness practice, workplace organization or external relations” Oslo Manual, OECD 2006

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Key drivers of the Year

• Creativity and innovation - in a wide sense, cultural, scientific, artistic and utilitarian aspects

• Lifelong learning and personal development- lifelong and lifewide

- key competences• Social and economic development

- public and private sectors, growth and competitiveness, cultural dynamics, social inclusion (no talent should be lost)

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In a nutshell

Promoting creativity and fostering the innovative capacity of individuals and organisations to meet their personal, economic and social objectives

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A time for collaboration

• Creativity and innovation are personal capacities requiring a social context

• Wide consensus in the collective, collaborative nature of innovation - social, organisational or research-based

• We live in a networked society, and ICT provides unprecedented tools for sharing and for collaboration

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Beyond 2009

• The new Strategic Framework for policy cooperation in education and training• Creativity and innovation as a fourth pillar• Need to develop new monitoring and peer

learning tools and methods• Agenda for cooperation in schools policies

• Post-Lisbon Strategy and Recovery Plan• Creativity and innovation as core social and

economic drivers: the key role of education

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Education, creativity and innovation

• Education for creativity and innovation: • Talents to be spotted and grown• Capacities to be taught and built upon• Attitudes to be nurtured and strengthened

• Creativity and innovation:• A permanent quest for improvement• A must for personal and social development• Core drivers and values for education

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Teachers as key stakeholders

• Teachers as the key success factor

• Teachers and parents as main talent spotting and nurturing actors

• Schools, including early learning, as a strategic time and place for talent

• Schools as a key stage for developing a lifelong learning attitude

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Skills needs

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What does research say about the skills needed for creativity?

• High levels of motivation• Self confidence• Knowledge base• Skills for gathering and storing information• Systematically experimenting • Developing and employing problem solving

strategies• Reasoning by analogy• Gaining insight• Making connections; seeking links• Evaluating, selecting criteria

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… and a capacity to

• Analyse data, recognise patterns and relationships

• Be aware of underlying principles• Be curious/ questioning• Learn from mistakes• Cope with complexity• Imagine• Entertain alternative hypotheses• Be independent in judgement and thinking• Be flexible

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Some schools struggle to innovate …

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… and innovation is not always successful

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Creative partnerships asked their teams to describe successful creative schools and they

said, they were:

• Imaginative• Confident decision makers• Good at taking and managing risks• Full of questions• Full of ideas• Emotionally literate • Persistent and resilient• Critical reflectors

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Key competences Competences overlap & interlock

Mother tongueForeign languagesMath & scienceDigitalLearning to learn Social & civicEntrepreneurshipCultural

Underpinned by …

Critical thinking Creativity Initiative taking Problem solving Risk assessment Decision taking Managing feelings…

implications for…

School curricula

School

organisation

Teacher

education

Teachers ways of

working

http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/2010/objectives_en.html#basic

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Cross country analysis: Implementation of the strategy

- Shift from viewing knowledge as a static body- Transversal competences- -Whole school tecahing of traditional competences,

embedding these in other subjects - For success political committment and well

orchestrated implementation strategy needed - MSs that are successful are:

- Setting appropriate curriculum goals and standards- Developing teacher competences- Shaping school practices (innovation support, school

development, leadership)- Giving appropriate feedback through assessment and

evaluation

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Teacher educationResearch Evidence teacher quality

significantly and positively correlates with pupil

attainment most important within-school aspect explaining

student performance (greater effects than school organisation, leadership or

financial conditions) in-service teacher training correlates positively with

student achievement

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Teachers sometimes under-estimate their pupils …

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… and fail to see their potential

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… and pupils don’t always learn what teachers intend

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Teacher: A more complex, more demanding

profession

task: to help each young person:

acquire basic knowledge

acquire key skills and attitudes

become autonomous learners

become life-long learners

co-construct learning

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A more complex, more demanding profession

individualised teaching and learning

collaborative and constructive approaches to learning

facilitator / classroom manager (rather than ex-cathedra

trainer)

more heterogeneous classes

new technologies

school management tasks

…

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Communication

• provision for teacher education / professional development is coordinated, coherent, and adequately resourced

• all teachers possess knowledge, attitudes and pedagogic skills they require to be effective

• support professionalisation of teaching• promote culture of reflective practice and

research• promote status and recognition

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Schools communication:Focus on competences

Key Proposals for Cooperationimplement Recommendation on Key Competences

action plans on reading literacy and numeracy

reinforce transversal competences, esp. learning-to-learn

comprehensive approach to competences:curricula, materials

teacher training

personalised learning

assessment techniques

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Schools communication: High quality learning for every studentKey Proposals for Cooperation

implement Council Conclusions on efficiency and equity

generalise access to quality pre-school education

measure, improve system equity; reduce quality differences between schools

facilitate successful transitions

reduce early school leaving

support students with special needs in mainstream schooling

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Schools communication: Teachers and school staff

Key Proposals for Cooperationimplement Council Conclusions on quality of T Ed.

make T Ed. coherent, adequately resourced, quality assured

improve supply, quality and take-up of in-service T Ed.

attract most able candidates, select best applicants, place good teachers in challenging schools

improve school leader recruitment, let them focus on improving learning

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ICT

• The use of ICT for innovation and lifelong learning –SWD– as a basic education and training tool – as an enabler of lifelong learning – - key driver for creativity and innovation

(social computing - including learning outside the formal settings and at the workplace)

• Case studies from the cluster

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Activities

- LLP programme- Comenius and eTwinning

- Survey on Creativity (till 15th of October, 8034 answers, top Greece, Turkey, Italy and Spain)

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http://create2009.europa.eu

create2009@ec.europa.eu

Thank you very much for your attention.